African philosophy, thought and practice, and their contribution to environmental ethics

Abstract:

Commenting on a trend by environmental ethicists to appeal to non-Western traditions as sources
of alternative perspectives on environmental values and practices, Workineh Kelbessa writes:
Despite the fact that advances have been made through recent discourse on the
environmental concern of non-Western traditions, most of the related research has
centred on Asia, Native American Indians, and Australian Aborigines, with little
attention being paid to most of Africa. Those who have studied non-Western
religions and philosophies have overlooked the contribution of Africa to
environmental ethics. They have either kept quiet or what they said about Africa
was rather thin compared to what they said about Native Americans, Asians and
Australian Aborigines (Kelbessa, 2005: 19-20).
Implicit in this comment are two claims. The first is that Africa has a contribution to make to
environmental ethics. The second is that this contribution has not been studied or considered
nearly seriously enough. Since it is widely acknowledged that the beliefs and practices of the
other indigenous peoples Kelbessa mentions have a meaningful contribution to make to this field,
it would be a worthwhile project to investigate what contribution (if any) African thought can
make to this field of enquiry. That is what I aim to do in this thesis.
J. Baird Callicott epitomises Kelbessa’s claim above and provides a reason for the lack of
attention given to African indigenous thought by environmental ethicists. In his comprehensive
survey of the ecological ethical traditions of communities across the globe, Earth’s Insights, he
claims. Apparently… Africa looms as a big blank spot on the world map of indigenous
environmental ethics for a very good reason. African thought orbits, seemingly,
around human interests. Hence one might expect to distil from it no more than a
weak and indirect environmental ethic, similar to [a] type of ecologically
enlightened utilitarianism, focused on long-range human welfare (Callicott, 1994:
158).